Re: running PostGres without installing it

> i want to distribute a copy of PostGres to my clients.
> they really dont know anything about installing
> programs or
> configurating remote RDBMS sql-servers,
> so i dont want to give them the
> "official-PostGres-installer.exe "
> but my own installer.exe (win32)
>
>
>
> I would love to know this too. Is there a way to just copy the
> PostgreSQL files to the hard drive without the installer, load up
> the database and start and stop it as an application rather than a
> service? A silent installer may solve the problem but what if you
> have 2 applications that both have installers and want to install
> PostgreSQL? The silent installer would need to be able to detect
> that it is already installed (which I think it already does) and
> then skip the PostgreSQL install without bugging the user (not sure
> it would do that).

It can be made to do that.
However, it should work just fine to copy the files and go from there.
You can get the binaries-no-instaler package on the web, but beware that
it does not contain all the dependencies. Another way to get the
"official version binaries" is to make an install on one machine and
then just copy everything from the directory you install it in. As of
8.1, postgresql puts *no files* in the Windows or SYSTEM32 directories.

Then you just start and stop the database using pg_ctl from inside your
app.

It's a lot more overhead than a db engine like access (JET) or sqlite,
but you do get a lot of extra features for that.

//Magnus